Better This Way
by Earthnfarie
Summary: Kagome after the well has closed, and she is left alone in her time.


**I do not own Inuyasha.**

**_Alright all. I have sent a long story to my beta, and she is unresponding. So i have attempted to beta this and that myself sorry if there are mistakes, but a girl can only do her best. So when i get the other posted it will be a chapter story. Bear with me on these, kay? And is someone would like to volenteer to beta it would be much appriciated. -AJ_**

She was just an average girl now. Nothing special about her anymore. Her body was littered with scars for a world that would never know what she had done for them. She was a myth to them; she was a story told by a senile old man at a shrine.

She was just an average girl. As many times as she told herself that her body and mind refused to forget. Her body couldn't forget the battles fought, the little arms that had held her, and the love she gave. Her mind refused to let go of the sister she had made, the monk she had traveled with, the resurrected miko, the silver haired boy, or the man she loved.

She was just an average girl. She had to work like everyone else, and live like it was all a lie. She had to walk to work, and home. She had to grocery shop, and there was no one now to take her away from school. She had to pretend that there was no magical well, that her roots weren't in the past- 500 years gone.

_**The winter here's cold and bitter,  
it's chilled us to the bone.  
We haven't seen the sun for weeks,  
too long, too far from home.**_

She was just an average girl. Her future was ripped away by destiny, and another dangled in front of her only to be pulled away as well. She hated where it left her, closing the well before the job was done, stranded in a future that wasn't where she belonged. She had no destiny now, only memories of those she was forced to leave behind. She only had memories of the one that she loved even still, but who never knew. She was lead down a path by fate only to be shoved off when she was so close to the end. It wasn't fair, and still she was to act normal and happy to sate everyone else when they knew nothing of her.

She hated all of it, but she wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. She had found love like she had never known was possible. She had raged when she landed at the bottom of the well, but still in her time, and then she wept. She mourned for all she had lost. She was shunted back to her time without a goodbye, without a kiss or hug, without anything to remember them by.

She hurt in ways that others never understood. Her arms ached for the one she couldn't hold. Her heart ached for the love she burned to have. Her legs ached to run, and play to be free as she was then, there, with them. Her hands longed to sooth the hurts of the ones that looked at her with love, and to build friendships, homes, a family. Her lips ached to be kissed. Everything that was her ached for what she didn't have, ached with invisible pain that no one but her knew existed.

She was ashamed for what she had become. She found it nearly impossible to move on with her life. She was so brave then, facing demons that wanted to kill her, and now she huddled away from the world clinging to myths and legends. Shied away from people, afraid of learning to love again, and just have fate rip it away again.

_**I feel just like I'm sinking,  
and I claw for solid ground.  
I'm pulled down by the undertow,  
I never thought I could feel so low,  
and, oh, darkness, I feel like letting go.**_

She wanted to be able to live again, but she wasn't sure she was willing to do it without them, without him. How was she supposed to just carry on with her life after everything she had seen and done? It was like a cruel joke that everyone got but her. She wanted to know how they were, how they were dealing with this. Had they just moved on without her? Were they still waiting? She didn't know, and that hurt more than she thought it would.

How to move on, that was the question she faced every moment now, even in her dreams she couldn't escape it. It was more a part of her than anything else. She wanted to honor them. She wanted people to know what they had done. She wanted people to understand why they had done it, and the sacrifices they had made to insure that it end ok. She wanted to world to know how they had fought and struggled, and that they did it side by side.

They deserved to be honored like the heroes they were, and she could make sure that happened. Maybe that was her destiny all along.

_**If all of the strength and all of the courage  
come and lift me from this place.  
I know I can love you much better than this:  
Full of grace, Full of grace, my love.**_

She looked over the shrine, and felt as if she was looking at it for the first time. She had worked hard to make this place. She had worked to make it ready. Now she was going to sing to the world the adventures of the bravest people she had ever known. She was ready to live for them if she couldn't live with them.

She made one last visit to the place where it had all started, to where fate had intervened in her simple life. She slipped inside the door, and closed it behind her. She looked into the darkness wondering if a silver haired boy would ever again jump out, and come to save her from herself. She wondered if there would ever be a chance to see her love again, even if he didn't know. She wondered if she could live like this, with a void so large in her chest.

Like a dream a blue light radiated up from depths that she had never fathomed. She began to cry with want for it to be real. But it wasn't real; it never would be again, not for her. So she turned away from the one thing that had comforted and cradled her for so long, and slipped back out of the well house to look at the grounds once more. The lanterns she had placed for the evening streaked across her teary vision, and seemed to radiate warmth. She was desperate for anything to make it better, to make the hurt not be so unbearable.

_**It's better this way,  
I said,  
Haven't seen this place before.**_

She quickly dried her eyes, and breathed deep as the first few people began to arrive. She straightened her miko robes, and moved into the shadows. She hid like she had for so many years, watching as they came, gathered to hear her words. When the time came there were so many she nearly ran, but she had promised she would live for them; she would share their story.

As the last stragglers settled down she stepped out of the shadows into the weak light of the lanterns like a ghost from the past. It was all she felt like, a ghost. She waited for the murmurs to die down as all eyes were on her, and began to tell the tale of her amazing friends, and their lives. She weaved the tale that she had never spoken before around these people, that knew nothing of the sacrifices made for them. She told them of the people whom had given everything so they could have the lives they do now.

Then she watched them wander away, having heard a grand tale. She didn't know if she could do it again. She stepped into the shadows that felt like they were consuming her, and let all the pain flow over her. It was supposed to feel better to do this, not make it worse.

She still was left wondering if they had ever defeated the evil, and saved the world, or if it continued to play out until they were too old to fight anymore. She didn't know how the story ended. She didn't know if they lived and triumphed or if they died with all of their sacrifices in vain. She didn't know where the jewel was, or if it even was. She didn't know what had happened to _him_.

It felt too much like a dream anymore, just another tale told by her grandfather, and she had to wonder if she had woken up or if she was still dreaming. And maybe, just maybe, she didn't want to know the ending to the story that had made her what she was.

_**Where everything we say and do,  
hurts us all the more.  
It's just that we stayed too long  
in the same old sickly scheme,  
and I'm pulled down by the undertow,  
I never thought I could feel so low,  
and, oh, darkness, I feel like letting go.**_

**_If all of the strength and all of the courage  
come and lift me from this place  
I know I can love you much better than this:  
Full of grace, full of grace._**

**_I know I can love you much better than this._**

**_It's better this way._**

_-AJ_


End file.
